


Yes, the River Knows

by took_skye



Series: Crazy Is As Crazy Does [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Gen, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Emily focused on his hand, pressed down in the center of his palm so his fingers twitched. She liked the reaction, that she could cause it, but relaxed her force nevertheless.</i>
</p>
<p>~ Some of Emily's background is influenced by Pink_Siamese's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/94762/chapters/129471">Drawn In Slow Strokes</a> and the poem at the beginning is an adjustment of one in that story.  (You don't have to read her story to understand this, but it's an amazing story, haha!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes, the River Knows

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a community prompt on Livejournal using the prompt "Charcoal"...Its title is from a 1968 song of The Doors and Ethan is Reid's friend from Season 2's "Jones".

  
_"Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes things visible." ~ Paul Klee_

***

Emily slipped into the art room and saw Dr Bellamy at his desk, hands working almost feverishly over a white sketch pad. “Um...Dr Bellamy.” She felt awkward, like she was intruding.

Ethan looked up with a soft smile. “Hey, Emily, what’s up?”

“Can I...chill here?”

“Of course.” He watched as she headed towards the back. “You can sit up here, you won’t be bothering me. I can even get you some paper and art supplies if you like.” He knew Emily enjoyed art.

“Oh,” Emily smiled and headed to the first table. “Okay, thanks.”

“What would you like to use?”

“What are you using?”

“Charcoal.”

“Sketching?”

“Automatic drawing.”

“What’s that?”

Ethan set a sketchbook down before her. “Has Dr Todd ever had you write without thinking?”

“Once or twice.” She could never do it though; she always censored herself.

“It’s the same thing, only drawing.”

“Does it work?”

“If you let it.” He set down a tin of charcoal sticks for her and headed back to his desk.

Emily picked over the bits of sticks, selected one, and began to draw. She tried to do what Dr Bellamy was doing, draw without thinking. A river appeared on the page, the outline of a woman, and she stopped, her inner censor appearing once again.

She looked over at the therapist, at his hands. They were blackened at the tips and around the sides, pinkie to wrist, from charcoal dust. The muscles and bones were more sure of themselves than a boy’s, they knew what they were doing as he drew. She imagined they knew what to do with a woman too.

“Dr Bellamy?”

The hands paused as he looked up. “Emily?” They were patient, controlled, hands.

“Do you...” she wondered if he had a girl, a woman, that his artist hands molded into some beautiful quivering mass in bed. “What, uh...what are you drawing?”

Ethan turned over his sketchpad to show her.

“A piano?” She was almost disappointed. “A thought the idea of this thing was to, like, delve into your subconscious.” And everyone knew he played piano.

He laughed some as he set the drawing back down. “Not just any piano, the first one I ever saw and played on.” His spirits slipped. “It was my aunt’s.”

“Did something happen to it?”

“The piano? No.”

“Did something happen to her?”

“No.” Ethan watched her search his gaze for clues. “My uncle wasn’t the nicest guy so going over there, playing the piano, holds both good and bad memories.” His smile returned. “What are you drawing, Emily?”

Emily looked down at her sketch thus far and then back up. “A river.”

“Where?”

“Italy.”

“Why is the river special enough to draw?”

“I like your hands.”

Dr Bellamy laughed as he stood up and took his chair to the opposite side of where Emily sat. “Why’s that?”

“They seem sure.”

“I want to hear about the river Emily.” He looked over at her drawing. “And about the woman in it.”

“Give me your hand.”

Ethan stretched his hand out to her. “Tell me about the woman.”

“Her name was Francesca.” Emily picked up a bit of charcoal.

“Was it her you drew for your mask?”

She ran the black fragment across his fingers. “Yes.”

“So she’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Ethan felt the charcoal scratch the surface of his skin as Emily pressed down. “She was attractive.” She was rounded in sexuality; hips, thighs, and breasts all sketched in circles. “She still is.”

“Yeah.”

He watched her draw jagged, caveman, rivers up his digits before she pulled his hand closer and turned it over. “There’s nothing wrong with liking her.”

“I guess.”

“Was this how you found her?” He asked with a tap to her sketch.

“I would watch her ride her bike past our house.” Emily focused on his hand, pressed down in the center of his palm so his fingers twitched. She liked the reaction, that she could cause it, but relaxed her force nevertheless. “But that was before.”

“The river.”

“Yeah.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven, twelve.”

“And you saw her there?”

She nodded. “Half in and half out, sorta floating but not, and her eyes were still kind of open.”

“Was she nude?” In the sketch she was.

“She had a skirt on, but that was it.”

“Were you scared?”

“Kinda.”

“Excited?”

Emily’s hand shook over his. She bit her lip.

“Keeping drawing, Emily.”

She continued her current pattern up over the meat by his thumb. “Yes.” She felt her stomach churn and face heat as tears welled up. “I’m really crazy aren’t I?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“You’re the doctor, shouldn’t you know?”

Ethan moved his free hand to pause hers.

She watched the black tips of his fingers as they rolled her palm open. The charcoal fell to the table.

“It’s not that easy, Emily.”

“She won’t leave me.” Her fingers curled around his hand some. “I think about her all the time.”

“First experiences like that stay with you.” He let her nails scrape over his knuckle. “However you feel about them, they don’t go away. But they become easier to live with once you talk about them.”

“I can’t.”

Ethan smiled. “You are now. To me.”

“You don’t count,” Emily’s lips threatened a smile.

“Why’s that?”

She shrugged. “You’re...” another shrug, “you.” He never felt like a psychiatrist to the patients, not like the others did.

Dr Bellamy chuckled as his decorated hand moved to her river. “I want you to finish this for me and then I think you should draw how Francesca was when alive, riding her bike by your house. Can you do that for me, Emily?”

“Can I see your piano when you’re done with it?”

“Of course.”

“Okay then.” She relaxed the hold on his hand, he did the same, and she smiled. “You like your hand?”

He examined what she’d drawn, what she’d tried to carve into his skin with black charcoal. “It’s very exotic. That’s the Italian Labyrinth on my palm, right?”

“Yeah. And waves on your fingers.”

“There’s art you can do with water, specifically. Would you like to try that next time?”

“Sure.”

***

_"Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of certain external symbols, conveys to others the feelings one has experienced, whereby people so infected by these feelings, also experience them." ~ Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?_   



End file.
